We Love Small Businesses!

Back in August 2010 (which, due to the inclement weather we have endured in the U.K since, seems like light-years ago) General Mill’s–the 6th largest food company in the world, responsible for household names such as Betty Crocker and Old El Paso–held an event where a select group of bloggers was invited to “Bake with Betty” at the company’s headquarters in Minneapolis. All very innocent, you may be thinking, but the underlying fear I have is that as more and more of the worldwide conglomerates begin to tap into the enormous power that social media marketing holds, how long will their ethical approaches hold fast?

The passion I hold for social media marketing is based on the unflinching belief that it is an evolution of communication based upon openness and transparency, making us all prosumers (both the consumer and producer of information) in the worldwide network. Gone are the days where the man with the biggest marketing budget held the key to fame and fortune. Gone are the days when we had to suffer the constant onslaught of questionable information, distributed through the media by savvy P.R people.

But as they say, where there’s a will there’s a way. A big part of my job when working on a campaign for a client is finding the social media influencers in their target market, and through engaging content and nurturing the relationship we hope to produce a new brand ambassador. However, I hope this sort of approach does not descend into the murky waters of questionable agreements being set up between the guys with the big cheque books and those influential bloggers and twitteratti out there who we look to for honest and impartial opinions.

I do believe that this new generation of marketers and opinion-leaders will have more moral fibre than to succumb to the wooing of the fat cats–which our predecessors in the press and television bought into hook line and sinker. This is the beginning of the transformation of communication. Just watch out for those cupcakes; they may be poisonous after all.